Quotes About Australia

I came to The United States to see what would happen in 2000 after working for 20 years in Australia and asked my agent to look out for the nasty roles because I'd become famous for playing the nicest man in Australia. So I wanted to play bad guys. But I've been doing that now for 13 years so when I was offered the chance to do some comedy, I grabbed it.

Australia was great. I would advise anybody to go there. In fact, if you couldn't live here, Australia would be the place to live. It's the most Americanized country that I've ever seen in the world.

I think I made some mistakes, in different areas, but it's great to be working in a show again now, many years down the track. I have worked in many other different shows in Australia and I've been able to learn from my mistakes. I'm lucky that I made those mistakes early on in Australia, and I definitely won't make them again in the States, but you've got to learn that stuff.

I was born in North London, migrated to Australia when I was four. So when I first came to Australia people saw me as a little English boy. Over the years that feeling of being a little English boy diminished and I felt much more Australian.

Because in Australia we're so inundated with American culture, television, this that and the other, everyone in Australia can do an American accent. It's just second nature.

I'm out there arguing the Labor case. I will do it anywhere and everywhere that I can. I do it within various communities across Australia where I am able to make a positive contribution. And let me tell you, my voice won't be silenced in the public debate because the issue at stake for Australia are so stark.

Conscription is an impediment to achieving the forces Australia needs. It is an alibi for failing to give proper conditions to regular soldiers. We will abolish conscription forthwith. By abolishing it, Australia will achieve a better army, a better-paid army - and a better, united society.

The country has to change. Productivity in Australia more generally has got to improve. Some of the highest manufacturing costs in the world are coming out of Australia.

To the former child migrants, who came to Australia from a home far away, led to believe this land would be a new beginning, when only to find it was not a beginning, but an end, an end of innocence - we apologise and we are sorry. To the mothers who lost the maternal right to love and care for their child - we apologise, and we are sorry.

Back in Australia, I did foster care for sick cats for years, and I was always most successful with the animals when I was given two - a brother and sister.

I was always nervous about coming back to Australia which was a complete hangover of the days when I left when ballet was not accepted, when I was not accepted, when I was considered a freak for wanting to be a ballet dancer. And, to be 100% honest, I rather dreaded coming back.

I've been to Australia a couple of times, but never to the north or the centre. I would love to see Ayers Rock.

Australia turns out to be a sensational place, albeit one of the most comfortably racist places I've ever been in. They've really settled into their intolerance like an old resentful slipper.

I understand that artists and critics make a big deal over the Grammys. But when I go to my shows and I'm selling out arenas in London, and when I'm in Australia and Japan, there aren't any Grammys there. There are human beings who I've touched. There are human beings who are inspired by me, who I love dearly. And that's what my career is based on.

You will never find a better friend to the United States than Australia.

A core challenge for Australia is - how do we best prepare ourselves for the Asia Pacific century - to maximise the opportunities, to minimise the threats and to make our own active contribution to making this Asia-Pacific Century peaceful, prosperous and sustainable for us all.

I do not apologize for the takeover of the region by the Jews from the Palestinians in the same way I don't apologize for the takeover of America by the whites from the Red Indians or the takeover of Australia from the blacks. It is natural for a superior race to dominate an inferior one.

A child came up to me and asked 'am I dreaming?' I had a similar experience coming to the Art Gallery of South Australia when I was a child. My mum had done a workshop here and it stayed with me. It's an important formative time.

Whether you go to Turkey or Mexico, China or Australia, find time to involve yourself with the people you're dealing with.

Australia's massive. I don't have a lot of downtime.

Men rush to California and Australia as if the true gold were to be found in that direction but that is to go to the very opposite extreme to where it lies. They go prospecting farther and farther away from the true lead, and are most unfortunate when they think themselves most successful.

When Elvira, Mistress Of The Dark came out, I got to go to Japan and Australia and France, Italy, Germany, everywhere with the movie. That was great, because I love traveling.

We had a level of tariffs of about five per cent. Now a lot of those will go, most of them will go over time, some of them immediately. Now that means that electronic goods and other things, white goods, coming into Australia, will be cheaper for our community. It also means in many cases that the inputs used by our high-end manufacturers to make a final product are also coming in cheaper than they otherwise would - so it makes those manufacturers more competitive.

I love to fish offshore for billfish, and have fished all over for them from the Bahamas, St. Thomas, Venezuela, Panama, Costa Rica, Mexico to the Texas gulf. I haven't made it to Australia yet, but someday I'm going.

The time has now come for the nation to turn a new page in Australia's history by righting the wrongs of the past and so moving forward with confidence to the future. We apologise for the laws and policies of successive parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians.

If you try to come to Australia by boat, even if we think you are the best person in the world, even if you are a Nobel Prize winning genius, we will not let you in.

A collection of huts surrounded by a barbed wire fence, and in the huts lived 500 of the original inhabitants of our area. And so it went with many country towns around Australia.

America was always a huge goal, if not the goal. I always wanted to move to America. I always wanted to come here and see what opportunities were around. I really only got a couple of auditions a year when I was in Australia, for acting work.

I have no problem with my age. I've been acting for 50 years in Australia and everyone knows my age because I started at 15. So there was never any point in lying about it.

Australia is about as far away as you can get. I like that.

I was first in Sydney in 1993, and have been a few times since then. For someone who didn't know Australia, it came as a shock how intelligent, interesting and funny the people were. If I lived there I might see it differently, but as a visitor it was a lot of fun.

My list would be Russia, Morocco, Turkey, and South Africa I'm doing which is somewhere I've wanted to go, Australia, Japan maybe, and China, if I have the energy to go and play at all those places.

Aboriginal Australia is a tough place to work, rough and tough.

Here in Australia we do get impacted by global economic events. But we should have some confidence that our economy has got strong underlying fundamentals.

Americans are the most generous country on the planet. I've worked in Europe, I've worked in Australia. There is no where else where you get absolutely no attitude for being a foreigner. If you do your job well, they embrace you.

Even in Australia I'd say 80 percent of our television was American. I grew up watching Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The Twilight Zone. I used to sit with my mum when I was just nine years old, trying to guess what the twist would be. I love that kind of thing.

You can be tops in Australia and be unheard of everywhere else

I thought I was actually doing quite well - I was on Jazz FM six days a week. I fancied going to Australia and I had a wonderful experience. It's changed me for the better and it was flattering to win.

Combat forces of the United States, Great Britain, Australia, Poland, and other countries enforced the demands of the United Nations, ended the rule of Saddam Hussein - and the people of Iraq are free.

Australia played some good cricket, but they have forgotten how to win.

Australia must prioritise education spending. It is not a question of whether or not we have the money, it is a question of how we choose to spend it.

In Australia, average temperatures have risen almost one degree since 1910, and each decade since the 1940s has been warmer than the one before. That warming is real. Its consequences are real. And it will change our lives in real and practical ways.

Even with the recent story about the nurse killing herself in King Edward Hospital, there's no blame placed on Kate Middleton, who was in the hospital as far as I could see for absolutely no reason. She feels no shame about the death of this woman, she's saying nothing about the death of this poor woman. The arrogance of the British royals is staggering, absolutely staggering. And why it's allowed to be I really don't know... It wasn't because of two DJs in Australia that this woman took her own life, it was the pressure around her.

To make films like 'X-Men' work commercially - and also have some class - is one of the hardest things there is to do. I want to be seen to be able to cross lots of genres and still be 'fair dinkum,' as we say in Australia, which means genuine and true and, well, unique.

Is it just me, or did Tamou go to hug a Kiwi before realising he had just scored for Australia?

I suppose I was very disappointed that I was injured during training for Korea. In fact, I had an argument with a grenade and it won, and consequently I was forced to come back to Australia for twelve months.

OPTIMISM, enthusiasm, confidence against fear, prejudice, conformity - that is his enduring message to the men and women of Australia. Never more than now.

God bless America, God Save the Queen, God defend New Zealand and thank Christ for Australia.